"Of all the unimportant things in the world, football is the most important"

Monday, August 01, 2016

Olympic football - Men

The Olympic games will be starting this week in Brazil (frankly I think the Olympic games will be great, simply because of Brazilian people, who will make it great despite all the economic and political problems in the country).
As often is the case, men's football is not highly rated, although one country in particular, Brazil, must be considered favourites and will be eager to win at home: Brazil has never won Olympic gold and after the World Cup debacle two years ago, Olympic gold will be a small consolation. Brazil is also bringing Neymar along as one of the three over-23 players allowed. Brazil will be opening against South Africa in a group that also includes Denmark and Iraq.
There are certainly other interesting sides in the 16-team tournament: Argentina, Honduras, Algeria and Portugal are in the same group. Portugal is coming with a strong team, although with no players that were part of the Euro 2016 squad. Argentina has defender Victor Cuesta as one of the over 23, but is otherwise with a team of youngsters, where their highly talented attack will be interesting to see: Angel Correa from Atletico Madrid, Cristian Espinosa from Villarreal and Cristian Pavon from Boca Juniors. Both Honduras and Algeria are with full under 23 sides.
The defending champions of Mexico are in a group with Germany, South Corea and Fiji (one of the few good things about Olympic football is that you can have countries like Fiji participating). Germany comes with another talented sides with veterans Sven and Lars Bender to provide the experience in midfield.
Finally, Sweden, Colombia, Japan and Nigeria are in another interesting group.

All in all, expectations are not great. I thought the men's tournament was particularly boring four years ago, and the most interesting to see is if any new players come about.